Today, there was a very special donation at Emma B Ward Elementary School. Teacher Heather Chilton put out a request earlier in the year for donations for her classroom library. Former student of Heather’s, Jude Thompson, who is only 12 years old, decided to buy books with his own birthday money and donate them to the class today.

According to Jude’s mother, Lisa, he has been actively donating his birthday money for the past three years. It started when Lisa asked him what he wanted for his birthday three years ago, and he couldn’t come up with anything. After suggesting donating it to charities, Jude took the idea and ran with it donating to other charities in the past few years.

When Lisa saw the donation request by Heather, she let Jude know about it, and he decided to take $200 of his $250 worth of birthday money and bought new books for the class. He then donated the rest to Heather so she could purchase specific books. While presenting the books to the classroom, Jude said, “I hope you guys enjoy the books.” Everyone greatly appreciated the donation.